Max Boykoff is the Director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, which is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. He also is an Associate Professor in the Environmental Studies program.
Through a sustained assessment of research and experimentation into Creative (Climate) Communications, this handbook provides guidance for what works, where, when, why and under what conditions.
Travel to one of the most remote parts of the planet is booming. What does that mean for the environment and visitor safety?
New York Times
by Paige McClanahan
In January, the Coral Princess, a ship with 2,000 berths and a crew of nearly 900, plowed through the frigid waters off the Antarctic Peninsula, cruising past icebergs, glaciers and mountains clad in snow. The cruise, which had been advertised at less than $4,000 per person, is remarkably cheaper than most Antarctic expeditions, which often charge guests at least three times that amount for the privilege of visiting one of the wildest parts of the planet. Visitors to the region — and the ships that carry them — are growing in number: Antarctica, once accessible only to well-funded explorers, is now edging toward the mainstream.
But managing tourism is a tricky issue in this distant region where no individual government has the power to set the rules, and the challenge is becoming more complex as Antarctica’s popularity grows. During the current austral summer, which runs from roughly November to March, visitor numbers to Antarctica are expected to rise by nearly 40 percent from the previous season. Some observers warn that such rapid growth risks imperiling visitor safety and adding pressure to this fragile region, which is already straining under the effects of climate change, commercial fishing for krill, toothfish and other species, and even scientific research.
Human activity in Antarctica falls under the governance of the Antarctic Treaty system, a model of international cooperation that dates to the Cold War era. But day-to-day management of tourism is regulated by the tour operators themselves, through a voluntary trade association that sets and enforces rules among its members. Observers agree that this system has worked well since it was set up in the 1990s, but some worry that booming tourist numbers could push the old system to a breaking point. They say that the consultative parties to the Antarctic Treaty system — governments like those of the United States, France, New Zealand, Argentina and some two dozen others — must act more quickly to manage tourism, and protect the region’s value as a wilderness.
“The bottom line for us is that there aren’t a lot of hard rules governing tourism. It’s mostly voluntary,” said Claire Christian, executive director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC), a network of more than 15 conservation groups that serves as an observer to the Antarctic Treaty system. “Right now, there is a lot of good will. But that’s not something you can guarantee.”
Scientists warn that the rise in tourism also increases the risk of disrupting the fragile environment. The introduction of invasive species — nonnative crabs or mussels clinging to the hull of a ship, foreign plant seeds stuck in the lining of a tourist’s parka — remains an important and ever-present threat. There is also evidence that populations of penguins and other wildlife have been disturbed by human activity in some areas. At the popular Hannah Point, there have been two reported instances of elephant seals falling off a cliff because of visitor disturbance. At other sites, historic structures have been marred by graffiti.
The Antarctic Treaty parties have drawn up “site visitor guidelines” for 42 of the most popular landing sites; these govern things like where ships are allowed to land, where visitors are allowed to walk, and how many landings are allowed per day. But the IAATO website lists more than 100 landing sites on the Antarctic Peninsula. Those with no guidelines in place may become more popular as tour operators try to avoid the crowds.
Pollution from ships is another concern. Although the International Maritime Organization’s polar code introduced new measures to control pollution, it still allows ships to dump raw sewage into the ocean if they are more than 12 nautical miles, roughly 13.8 miles, away from the nearest ice shelf or “fast ice” — stationary sea ice attached to the continent or grounded icebergs. It also fails to regulate discharges of “graywater,” runoff from ships’ sinks, showers and laundries that has been shown to contain high levels of fecal coliform as well as other pathogens and pollutants. Concerns about pollution are perhaps all the more worrying given the arrival of Princess Cruise Lines, which — alongside its parent company, Carnival Corporation — has been heavily fined for committing serious environmental crimes in other parts of the world.
A spokeswoman for Princess Cruises stressed in an email that the company is “committed to environmental practices that set a high standard for excellence and responsibility to help preserve the marine environment in Antarctica.” Negin Kamali, Princess Cruises’ director of public relations, added that the company meets or exceeds all regulatory requirements for Antarctica.
Fuel pollution, especially carbon emissions — is another concern, although there have been some positive steps. In 2011, the use of heavy fuel oil in the Antarctic was banned under the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL). Today, ships in the region generally use less-polluting marine diesel, although some — like the MS Roald Amundsen, run by the Norwegian company Hurtigruten — have gone a step further, supplementing their traditional fuel with battery power. Princess Cruises is currently testing similar technologies, said Ms. Kamali.
In the background, warmer temperatures are making the entire continent more vulnerable to external threats.
“It’s important to understand that all of these impacts — climate change, fishing, tourism — are cumulative,” Cassandra Brooks, an assistant professor in environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, wrote in an email. “Given the sheer carbon footprint of Antarctic tourism, and the rapid growth in the industry, these operations will become increasingly difficult to justify.” Read more …
Mashable
by Mark Kaufman
So far in short-lived 2020, Antarctic scientists measured warm waters eating away at the planet’s most threatening glacier, Earth experienced its warmest January in over 140 years of record-keeping, and the Australian Navy rescued 1,000 residents trapped by the nation’s historic, climate-enhanced fires.
Sen. Bernie Sanders has an ambitious, though imperfect, plan to help slash Earth’s skyrocketing carbon emissions. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, appointed a non-climate scientist to the National Security Council who incorrectly claimed Earth’s plants are in dire need of more CO2, directed his administration to officially leave the world’s climate change agreement in November, and got owned by Captain America when he childishly tweeted that the inevitable presence of winter means the planet isn’t warming.
Yet Washington Post opinion columnist Fred Hiatt has chosen to write to the paper’s massive audience that Sanders and Trump “both reject the reality of climate change.” You may ask, Did the PR arm of a powerful oil company write this? No, but almost. The column is buttressed by a conversation with the CEO of one of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies (Total). It argues that Sanders’ climate plan is “fantasy extremism,” largely because it doesn’t rely on less-aggressive carbon taxes to curb human-caused warming.
This argument, however, is critically flawed. It’s unpleasant to hear, but avoiding the worst consequences of a heating planet (a planet that warms by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 Fahrenheit, above 19th-Century levels) will indeed require widespread, extreme measures. “Limiting warming to 1.5 C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes,” U.N. climate scientist Jim Skea said in 2018.
So while it’s true Sanders’ $16 trillion framework (and Democratic plans similar to it) is extremely ambitious, it grasps what’s required to radically transform how we power our vehicles, homes, and economy.
“This kind of ambition gets us into the ballpark that’s commensurate with the scale of the challenge,” Max Boykoff, the director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Mashable last year.
Take, for example, wind and solar energy in the United States. Since 2008, 90 percent of the nation’s wind and solar has come online. While an admirable achievement, this only accounts for around 10 percent of electricity produced in the U.S. today. Sanders’ plan wants to ramp this up to 100 percent in a decade’s time. Unprecedented, yes. But U.N. scientists emphasize that to stay on track for largely eliminating carbon emissions (attaining “net zero”) by 2050, civilization’s emissions must plummet by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030.
Is it a “rejection of climate change” to strive for the unparalleled carbon cuts as called for by the United Nations, the world’s leading intergovernmental organization? Not nearly.
Sanders’ climate plan may be easy to attack in an Op-Ed because it’s bold, far-reaching — and imperfect.
For example, Hiatt criticized Sanders desire to ban fracking for natural gas, which Hiatt argues can be a credible “transition fuel” from coal (fracking means injecting a high-pressure mixture of water, sand, and chemicals into the ground to break open hard-to-reach pockets of fossil fuels). Sanders wouldn’t be able to ban fracking, as no president can legally ban fracking on the private land where some 77 percent of fracking occurs. But at least Sanders doesn’t support more fracking on public, federal land — a place where a president can prohibit more drilling.
Natural gas, which leaks in prodigious amounts from fracking sites and is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 20 years, is clearly not a climate savior nor a dependable “transition fuel” that can be relied on in the decades ahead. Yet, natural gas is now the largest electricity source in the nation. It’s certainly not going away anytime soon, but Sanders aims to speed up the replacement of natural gas with renewables. Read more …
Texas A&M’s The Battalion
by Jennifer Streeter
While climate change affects everyone on the planet, researchers who focus on how climate change is communicated showed the negative effects already impacting communities on the margin while noting that no one is unaffected.
Day one of “Communicating the New Climate Regime: Confronting the Coming Barbarism” included presentations on the global climate movement inspired by Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg in contrast to the history of environmental racism against poor, African American communities in the U.S. The conference continues Friday, Feb. 21, with nine speakers discussing the science and religion of global warming, designing a just climate policy, and fascist and democratic tendencies in the new climate regime. All presentations are open to the public; no advance registration required.
Professor Nathan Crick, Ph.D., opened the conference by focusing on the rhetoric of the new climate regime and how it impacts individuals. Crick is the author of six books and specializes in rhetoric and public affairs in the Dept. of Communication at Texas A&M.
“We are trying to show how climate change is communicated,” Dr. Crick said. “It affects communities in the center and on the margins. Part of what global warming does as a movement is that there is no one unaffected.”
Zoe Clemmons, a researcher at Colorado State University in the Journalism & Media department, has analyzed Thunberg communicates on her Instagram account. Thunberg, who was nominated for the 2019 and 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, has maintained a largely hopeful outlook in her posts, said Clemmons, in contrast to the content of many of her speeches including at the U.N. Thunberg has called out leaders for not doing more to combat the climate crisis, said Clemmons.
While 69 percent of American are worried about climate change, 70 percent would not donate $10 to fight the cause, noted Clemmons.
Thunberg’s message of hope on social media stands in sharp contrast to the key issue of trash – and where it is dumped – the focus a presentation by Hana Masri of the University of Texas at Austin. Her research defined the rhetoric of smell — specifically the omnipresent stench of trash — and early organizing efforts by CORE against environmental racism during the Jim Crow era in the South.
“They put garbage where they think garbage lives,” Masri explained about the decision of white community leaders to put the town’s landfill in the center of the African American neighborhood while also limiting trash pickup within the black community.
The health problems imposed on impoverished African American communities was highlighted by Racquel Robvias, Ph.D., from Louisiana State University, in her presentation on an “Urban Heat Island.”
“It’s a slow violence,” Robvias explained. “It’s internal; what’s going on, on the inside.”
Ryan McGeough of the University of Northern Iowa, who presented on the changing relationship to land, said he appreciated the chance to bring together academics from across the country to address the rhetoric of climate change.
“They did a nice job of getting some really heavy hitters academically to come and be in one place talking to each other,” McGeough said.
Phaedra Pezzullo from University of Colorado, Boulder, will close out the conference tomorrow by focusing on “climate barbarism.” Pezzullo said she feels strongly that it is imperative to respond to the climate crisis.
“Do we want to have radical individualism?” Pezzullo asked. The alternative, she noted, is to act in the public good.
Day two of “Communicating the New Climate Regime: Confronting the Coming Barbarism” resumes at 9 a.m. in MSC 1400 with Giselle Warren of Texas A&M University presenting “The Science and Religion of Global Warming.”
Applied to the Balanced Harvesting Debate
by Matthew G. Burgess and Michael J. Plank
ICES Journal of Marine Science, doi: 10.1093/icesjms/fsaa012
Abstract: Balanced harvesting (BH)—the idea of harvesting all species and sizes in proportion to their production rate—has been a topic of recent debate. Developed world fisheries tend to fish more selectively, concentrating on certain species and sizes preferred in the market. However, fishing patterns in some developing countries, with a range of different fishing gears and more generalist markets, more closely resemble BH. The BH debate therefore hinges on whether selective fisheries should become more balanced, whether unselective fisheries should do the opposite, both, or neither. In this study, we use simple and general analytical theory to describe the ideal free distribution that should emerge in unmanaged fisheries, and we show that this ideal free distribution should approximately produce BH only when prices, catchabilities, and fishing costs are similar across species and sizes. We then derive general properties of yield and profit maxima subject to conservation constraints. We find that BH is unlikely to be optimal in any fishery but may be closer to optimal in fisheries in which it emerges without management. Thus, BH may be more useful as a heuristic for understanding differences between fisheries in locally appropriate management than as an exact management strategy. Read more …
The CIRES Center for Science and Technology Policy Research hosted a competition to send three CU Boulder students to Washington, DC to attend the AAAS “Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering” workshop March 29 – April 1, 2020. At the workshop students will learn about Congress, the federal budget process, and effective science communication, and will have an opportunity to meet with their Members of Congress or congressional staff. The competition is supported by the University of Colorado Graduate School and Center for STEM Learning.
Through a highly competitive selection process Shirley Huang (Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences), Marielle Pellegrino (Aerospace Engineering), and Tasha Snow (Geography) were chosen as this year’s winners to attend the workshop. Their biographies are listed below.
Shirley Huang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. Her research focuses on language development in bilingual children and emotional well-being in immigrant children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. As both a healthcare provider and a scientist, she is interested in learning how politics and policies impact culturally-linguistically diverse populations—populations that historically have been considered vulnerable. Shirley is passionate about advocacy work, and she applies her research to a larger scale in science, health, and educational policymaking.
Marielle Pellegrino is a fourth year PhD student in Aerospace Engineering. She is a Draper Fellow and Smead Scholar working in the Celestial and Spaceflight Mechanics Laboratory at CU Boulder. She studies debris mitigation at high altitude orbits, like medium Earth orbit, where GPS satellites are, and geosynchronous orbit, where communication satellites are. She looks at using the Sun’s light and chaotic resonances to bring satellites back at their end of life to avoid being a collision hazard for functioning satellites in those regions. In her free time, Marielle also runs a blog on astronomy and aerospace engineering, missaerospace.com, and pursues various local science communication opportunities.
Tasha Snow is a fifth-year PhD Candidate in the Geography Department at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her doctoral research focuses on new ways to use satellites to study ocean impacts on ice fluctuations in Greenland and Antarctica. She is passionate about communicating science, especially climate change, to the public, and connecting it with policymaking. She periodically gives live talks at the Fiske Planetarium on climate change effects on Colorado and recently helped produce a science-policy podcast series, called Sciencing with Purpose.
Peak to Peak News: The Mountain Ear
On Sunday, January 26, 2020, Wild Bear Nature Center launched the first of a series of talks on Climate Action at the Center in Caribou Village. The keynote address was given by Max Boykoff the Director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Max has written and edited several books about climate change. The book he based his talk on Sunday Creative (Climate) Communications, as the title suggests, is about having communications regarding climate change.
“Conversations about climate change at the science-policy interface and in our lives have been stuck for some time. This handbook integrates lessons from the social sciences and humanities to more effectively make connections through issues, people, and things that everyday citizens care about.”
The term “climate change” has taken on significant meaning both for opponents and advocates. In his talk Prof. Boykoff puts forth the proposition that to facilitate better communication it may be better to talk about the effects of a changing climate. Things like the legacy we are leaving our children, the availability and affordability of food, energy and housing, shifts in employment and natural resources and the general feeling of wellbeing in America and elsewhere.
The talk was sponsored by Wild Bear and our own SAB (Sustainability Advisory Board) whose members Melody Baumhover, Reid Barcus and Alvin Mites were in attendance as well as BOT/SAB liaison Alan Apt, and event co-sponsor, Nederland Community Library director Elektra Greer and other town servants. Wild Bear Executive Director Jill Dreves opened the evening by briefly sharing the exciting news on the status of the Nature Center that is going to be built on the Mud Lake property, the only one of its kind in the Nation.
Alvin Mites, wearing a Mad Hatter hat, introduced Max Boykoff listing his many academic credentials and reminding people that Xcel Energy brought cards offering giveaways of LED bulbs, low flow shower heads and other gifts to help conserve energy. Also available at the event were forms for helping to meet Nederland’s 100% renewable electricity goal by signing up for a Home Energy Squad visit. Residents can replace all bulbs with LED, install advanced power strips and sign up for the Xcel Energy renewable energy program. Alvin said, “This evening is about action, and these are things we can all do.”
Boykoff thanked Roberta Brown-Jones for inviting him to Nederland to speak and he shared his appreciation for the people who came to the event for valuing what his Center at CU Boulder works on as well. The students and staff of the CSTPR (Center for Science & Technology Policy Research) mission and vision: “Our long-term vision is to serve as a resource for science and technology decision makers and those providing the education of future decision makers. To improve how science and technology policies address societal needs, including research, education and service.”
Some of the topics that were discussed were how things relating to climate change can scale upward, the existential threat to all aspects of our lives, including cultural, societal, belief systems, economic, political, scientific and artistic. Prof. Boykoff shared the fact that “those who make the greatest impact are not always those with the most resources.” This theme, that everyone’s input, ideas, contributions and solutions are needed and welcomed threaded through the event’s agenda. Not just scientists, policy makers and influential people but artists, comedians, teachers and working class concerned citizens, all of whom were represented at the discussion. Cooperation and collaboration are a focus and a practice at CSTPR.
Visit CSTPR for more information on programs like Comedy for Climate Change, Inside the Greenhouse Project, and the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO).
Max also shared the work of many of his colleagues and associates including Deserai Anderson Crow who edited the book Culture, Politics and Climate Change, How Information Shapes our Common Future in a collaboration with Boykoff. He referenced Susanne Moser, Director and Principal Researcher of Susanne Moser Research & Consulting. Her work focuses in part on equitable adaptation to and transformation in the face of climate change. It is climate change communication in support of social change, decision support and the interaction between scientists, policymakers and the public.
Other studies and advocates Boykoff spoke about were Project Drawdown, Carvalho & Burgess 2005 article “Cultural Circuits of Climate Change”, and Josh Pasek of the University of Michigan and his research exploring how new media and psychological processes each shape political attitudes, public opinion and political behaviors. He talked about Kari Marie Norgaard, Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon and her work on the social organization of denial, especially regarding climate change.
Also mentioned were Leaf Van Boven, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at CU, and Amanda Carrico an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist, also, at CU and Peter McGraw and the Humor Code. Sharing of sources of information on climate change dialog was also shared by many in attendance. John Ott had a copy of the Report by the National Center for Science Education, Spring 2017 with tips on how to have controversial conversations, including on climate change.
The discussion Sunday night was lively with many comments and stories shared by those who attended. “How do we make it so more people are less scared,” asked Ara Greer. On the topic of denial Zoe Lewis said, “You can’t run away from climate change, how do you cultivate greater awareness.” Reid Barcus shared that “the technology for building windmills and oil derricks is very similar” on ease of transition to clean energy. Another scientist and teacher in the room shared how controversial it was when she planned to support her students in the Climate March. Alan Apt brought up the point that people are overwhelmed and may avoid climate change advocacy and activism because they may be denigrated for their enthusiasm and action in the face of apathy and acceptance of the status quo.
This question of the danger of voicing the truth of climate change with people, in contrast to the statement “Scientists should stand up and advocate for scientific evidence” made by Shahzeen Attari and shared by Boykoff, may be the key to why progress “is moving in the right direction but not fast enough”. Learning how to communicate so that everyone in the conversation feels heard, feels like they are working together towards solutions and common goal.
Prof. Boykoff shared a lot of information and reminded attendees that more is available in his book Creative (Climate) Communications; Productive Pathways for Science, Policy and Society. It is also available online and at the library.
The key takeaways were; Be authentic, be aware, be accountable, be imaginative and be bold. Find common ground and emphasize the here and now, focus on the benefits of engagement to empower people to “smarten up”.
When people make small changes, from small to big, it makes them more aware that they are making changes, working together on land, air and water quality issues we can make a huge impact.
Max, a reader of The Mountain-Ear, said, “In a 21st century communication environment, we must smarten up how we communicate with people to find common ground as we discuss the changing climate. We can draw on a lot of research and practical work has been done that can effectively provide insights and pathways to greater engagement and action on climate change”.
(Originally published in the January 30, 2020, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)
CSTPR Faculty affiliate, Cassandra Brooks, was one of 111 total women, 2 from University of Colorado, who travelled to Antarctica as part of the Homeward Bound leadership course for women in STEMM and each shared a personal climate story.
Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO)
January 2020 Summary
January media attention to climate change and global warming at the global level increased slightly from December 2019 coverage, up about 4%. Yet compared to a year earlier (January 2019), the number of news articles and segments about climate change and global warming nearly doubled. Across all regions and countries monitored, coverage in January 2020 was higher than coverage in January 2019. Regionally, the ongoing stream of stories in January 2020 increased most in Oceania (up 25%) and North America (up 15%) from December 2019. Increases in coverage in these regions in January 2020 compared to January 2019 was striking, with coverage in Oceania up 144% and coverage in North America up 85%. While coverage in Europe in January 2020 was up just 3% from the previous month, it has gone up 103% from January 2019.
Figure 1 shows trends in newspaper media coverage at the global scale – organized into seven geographical regions around the world – from January 2004 through January 2020.
At the national-level, coverage rose most in Australia (up 30%) in January 2020 compared to the previous month of December 2019. This coverage in January 2020 was also more than triple the amount of coverage in January 2019. Coverage was also notably higher in the United Kingdom (UK), up 17% in January 2020 from December 2019 and up 123% from coverage in January 2019. And coverage in United States (US) television and newspapers increased 7.5% in January 2020 from the previous month while going up 43% from January 2019.
In January, ecological and meteorological connections with climate issues continued to contribute substantially to media coverage of climate change around the world. To illustrate, the ongoing domestic as well as international reports on ongoing Australian wildfires generated numerous media reports that connected the dots between these fires and a changing climate. As the death toll rose into the twenties while 12 million acres have burned and nearly a billion animals have been displaced or killed, media coverage intensified. For example, Washington Post journalist Andrew Freedman reported, “While bush fires are a regular occurrence during the Australian dry season, a combination of long-term climate change and natural variability is making the situation far worse. Human-caused global warming is raising the odds of and severity of extreme-heat events and also adding to the severity of wildfires by speeding the drying of the landscape, among other influences. One of the most robust conclusions of climate studies has been that human-caused warming would increase the frequency and severity of heat waves and also boost the occurrence of days with extreme fire danger”.
However, as media mogul Rupert Murdoch owns News Corp Australia that, in turn, runs nearly 60% of Australia’s daily media organizations, this control over narratives became part of the stories appearing in January 2020. For example, New York Times journalist Damian Cave reported, “The idea that “greenies” or environmentalists would oppose measures to prevent fires from ravaging homes and lives is simply false. But the comment reflects a narrative that’s been promoted for months by conservative Australian media outlets, especially the influential newspapers and television stations owned by Rupert Murdoch. And it’s far from the only Murdoch-fueled claim making the rounds. His standard-bearing national newspaper, The Australian, has also repeatedly argued that this year’s fires are no worse than those of the past — not true, scientists say, noting that 12 million acres have burned so far, with 2019 alone scorching more of New South Wales than the previous 15 years combined”.
News Corp Australia, via The Australian, pushed back while also accusing other outlets of political motivations behind their critiques. The Editors wrote, “our factual account of bushfires, climate change and the remedies, as well as our editorial commentary on these issues, have been wilfully and ineptly misrepresented by The New York Times and The Guardian Australia as climate denial. The truth is that the political and media reaction to this devastating bushfire season is a bid to replay the May election and get a different result. There is a belief that The Australian — having predicted the result — is somehow complicit in driving policies that promote devastating bushfires. This is not only disingenuous but disgraceful”.
Journalist Zoe Samios from The Sydney Morning Herald reflected, “As bushfires rip through the country, criticism of News Corp’s climate change coverage in its Australian newspapers has been unrelenting. As the links between climate change and the ferocity of the bushfires played out, a subsidiary debate about the appropriateness of certain articles and opinion pieces in The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and The Herald Sun gathered momentum… News Corp has run many pieces that have questioned the legitimacy of widely-accepted climate-change science over the past decade”.
In coverage across Australia and New Zealand, ‘fire’, ‘fires’ and ‘bushfires’ along with ‘climate’, ‘change’, ‘Australia’, ‘Australian’, ‘government’ and ‘Morrison’ all appeared in the top 25 most frequently used words in January 2020 news stories.*
In January, political and economic content also shaped media coverage. Prominently, many media outlets abundantly covered the announcement early in January from BlackRock that they were divesting from carbon-based energy projects that posed significant risk to ongoing capitalist profitmaking. In particular, an open letter from CEO Laurence Funk garnered significant attention, as a break from business-as-usual and potentially (with the scale of BlackRock investments) a sign of emerging trends. For example, journalist Stephen Gandel from CBS News reported, “BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, says it is selling $500 million of coal-related investments as part of a larger shift to make climate change central to its investment decisions. BlackRock founder and CEO Laurence Fink, who oversees the firm’s management of $7 trillion in funds, announced the initiative in his influential annual letter to chief executives of major companies. The letter was posted on BlackRock’s website Tuesday. In it, Fink said he believes we are “on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance” because of a warming planet. Climate change has become the top issue raised by clients, Fink said in the letter, and it will soon affect everything from municipal bonds to long-term mortgages for homes”. Meanwhile, Washington Post journalists Stephen Mufson and Rachel Siegel noted, “In a separate letter to investors, BlackRock announced it would exit investments with high environmental risks, including thermal coal, which is burned to produce electricity and creates carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. BlackRock will also launch new investment products that screen for fossil fuels. The nation’s largest financial institutions are under increasing pressure from investors, activists and some political leaders for their tepid response to climate change, even as the Trump administration has systematically rolled back environmental regulations to promote economic growth”.
Also in January, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland – with particular attention paid to climate risk – led to media attention. Of note, the annual risk report released ahead of the meeting contained news that for the first time the top five risk concerns related to climate, biodiversity loss, environment and sustainability. For example, journalist Larry Elliott from The Guardian reported, “A year of extreme weather events and mounting evidence of global heating have catapulted the climate emergency to the top of the list of issues worrying the world’s elite. The World Economic Forum’s annual risks report found that, for the first time in its 15-year history, the environment filled the top five places in the list of concerns likely to have a major impact over the next decade”.
In January, scientific dimensions also grabbed media attention to climate change and global warming. For example, pronouncements that 2019 was the second-hottest year on record (and 2010-2019 was the hottest decade) generated media interest. First to report, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (supported by the European Union) made the announcement. Shortly thereafter, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced similar findings. Read more …
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MeCCO Monthly Summary: Experts Say Climate Change is Expected to Bring More of the Same
Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO)
February 2020 Summary
February media attention to climate change and global warming at the global level decreased 12% from January 2020 coverage, but was up 62% from the previous February 2019. Regionally, stories in February 2020 increased in North America (up 6%) from January 2020. Meanwhile, coverage decreased in all other regions in February 2020 compared to the previous month. Yet, there were increases in coverage in all regions except Africa (down 15%) in February 2020 compared to February 2019, with coverage increasing most in Oceania (up 53%) and in North America (up 81%). Figure 1 shows trends in newspaper media coverage at the global scale – organized into seven geographical regions around the world – from January 2004 through February 2020.
New this month are regional figures across Africa (15 sources), Asia (23 sources), Europe (33 sources), Latin America (12 sources), the Middle East (6 sources), North America (20 sources) and Oceania (8 sources). We now track media coverage of climate change or global warming in ten languages:
At the national-level, coverage in February 2020 generally declined slightly from January 2020 in the twelve nations where we specifically monitor country coverage (among 55 countries total). The exceptions in February 2020 were Canada (up 47%), United States (US) television (up 6%) and Russia (up 13%) compared to the previous month’s coverage in January 2020. Of note, thanks to the work of colleagues Gabi Mocatta and Erin Hawley from the University of Tasmania, we at MeCCO have begun to monitor four print sources in Russia from January 2000 – February 2020: Izvestiya, Rossiskaya Gazeta, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, and Komsomolskaya Pravda.
In February, political and economic content dominated media coverage. Among numerous stories, corporations’ declarations to move to carbon neutrality grabbed media attention. Among them, British Petroleum (BP) declarations to offset their emissions was a counter-intuitive story that earned news considerations and scrutiny. For example, Wall Street Journal reporters David Hodari and Adriano Marchese wrote, “BP PLC pledged to reduce its net carbon emissions to zero by 2050 and restructure its oil-focused businesses to better navigate a transition to other fuels—a dramatic, if vague, promise by one of the world’s biggest energy companies amid investor and consumer pressure over fossil fuels. The goal is the latest in a series of commitments, made over decades, by big oil companies to reduce emissions. While bold in ambition, BP didn’t provide details about how it expects to accomplish the goal, or how much it will cost”. New York Times journalist Brad Plumer reported, “the pledge is another sign that major companies, including fossil-fuel producers, are facing growing pressure from investors and activists to show they are taking global warming seriously… Rising concerns about climate change pose an existential threat for oil and gas companies, since scientists have said that preventing dangerous temperature increases will require steep reductions in the use of fossil fuels. In recent years, shareholders have pressed oil companies to prepare for a future in which countries shift to electric vehicles or enact new regulations to limit carbon dioxide emissions”.
Meanwhile, the February Instagram announcement by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to give US$10 billion to confront climate change generated numerous radio, television and newspaper stories. For example, CNBC journalist Thomas Franck wrote, “Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos on Monday announced the launch of a new Earth Fund that the e-commerce chief plans to use to combat the effects of climate change. He said in an Instagram post that he’s pledging $10 billion to start the fund, which will be called the Bezos Earth Fund, and will issue grants to scientists, activists and other organizations in their efforts to “preserve and protect the natural world.” “We can save Earth,” Bezos wrote in his post. “It’s going to take collective action from big companies, small companies, nation states, global organizations, and individuals.” “Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet,” he added. “I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share.” Bezos added in his post that he expects the Earth Fund to begin issuing grants to climate-oriented causes as soon as this summer”. Concern, suspicion and critique proliferated as well. For example, journalist Amy Held from US National Public Radio reported, “some Amazon workers, deeply critical of their employer’s own environmental record, say it is Amazon itself that has been complicit in the climate crisis and must change its ways. “We applaud Jeff Bezos’ philanthropy, but one hand cannot give what the other is taking away,” Amazon Employees For Climate Justice said in a statement in response to the pledge. “When is Amazon going to stop helping oil & gas companies ravage Earth with still more oil and gas wells? When is Amazon going to stop funding climate-denying think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute and climate-delaying policy? When will Amazon take responsibility for the lungs of children near its warehouses by moving from diesel to all-electric trucking?” In April, thousands of Amazon workers signed an open letter to Bezos and Amazon’s board of directors, calling on them to end contracts with oil and gas companies, halt donations to climate change-denying lawmakers and setting measurable goals”.
Also in February, stories of United Kingdom (UK) preparations for the United Nations Conference of Parties meeting on climate change earned media attention. For example, early in February journalist Jill Lawless from The Associated Press reported, “Britain announced Tuesday that it plans to ban the sale of new gas and diesel cars by 2035 — five years earlier than its previous target — in a bid to speed up efforts to tackle climate change. The announcement was timed to coincide with the launch of Britain’s plans for the United Nations’ climate summit, known as COP26, which is scheduled to be held in Glasgow in November. But the U.K. government’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions was questioned by the woman who was appointed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to head the Glasgow climate summit — and then was fired last week”. Moreover, longtime BBC journalist Roger Harrabin noted, “The UK is hosting COP26 in Glasgow in November – but Boris Johnson sacked president Claire O’Neill on Friday. Mrs O’Neill told the BBC there was a “huge lack of leadership and engagement” from the government. But senior cabinet minister Michael Gove said Mr Johnson was dedicated to environmental issues. Mr Gove told BBC Radio 5 Live that the prime minister described his political outlook as that of a “green Tory” when they first met 30 years ago. “Ever since then I’ve seen his dedication to ensuring that we fight to ensure that our Earth is handed on in a better state to the next generation,” he said. But Ms O’Neill, the former Conservative minister for energy and clean growth, said people should be wary of the prime minister’s promises. “My advice to anybody to whom Boris is making promises – whether it is voters, world leaders, ministers, employees, or indeed family members – is to get it in writing, get a lawyer to look at it and make sure the money’s in the bank,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme”. Read more …